A Poem by Cecilia Martinez-Gil

Prewriting Exercise: fountain of ink

Fountain of ink

does not ploy deceptions, no.

Pen surges to create illusions,

so play in them, within,

dance at their beat

script your own scenes

enable yourself to animate infinity

in this timed timely second

within the utopian frame of these pages

where poems read your delights and my sins

without tricking the reader not to believe

without misleading the writer not to relive.

As words and writers and readers meet

in the promise and the pledge

the oath supped under our tongues

as poems swallow you

as you feast in your echo of my own patois

Cuming to Live

Coming to Life

Spoken verb

While this story becomes verve that thrives.

(Finishing Line Press)

Cecilia Martinez-Gil is a poet, writer, translator, and former journalist. She has published two full- length poetry collections a fix of ink and Psaltery and Serpentines, and co-wrote the award-winning experimental video Itinerarios. Her poetry has been chosen finalist for the ForeWord Reviews’ Book of the Year Award, finalist in the USA National Best Books Award and Runner-Up for the Los Angeles Book Festival Award. Her poems have been published on Levure Littéraire, in Voices, A Santa Monica Women’s College Publication, Anthology of Latin American Writers in Los Angeles, Imaginarias: Antología de Poesía, and in her first chapbook Muecas de Fósforo. Her work as a journalist has been published in magazines and newspapers, in both Spanish and English. She has a B.A. in Comparative Literature, and two M.A.s, in Hispanic Languages and Literatures, and in English and Creative Writing. This fall, Cecilia will begin studies at Antioch University, pursuing a dual degree, an M.A. in Urban Sustainability combined with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. She teaches English and Latin American Literatures at Santa Monica College.